Company News
J K Ashbrook Limited – Switched On To Volvo Since purchasing their first Volvo compact excavator back in 2010, Congleton based civil engineering, plant hirer and agricultural contractor J K Ashbrook Ltd has added significantly more Volvo Construction Equipment products to its fleet. The mix of equipment includes a fourteen tonne EC140D and five, twenty two tonne EC220D crawler excavators all supplied directly from Volvo Construction
Equipment along with six ECR48Cs and six ECR88 Plus compact excavators supplied by Howard Plant Sales. “We’ve had a long association with Stephen Howard (Howard Plant Sales Ltd) and the reliability of the initial machine has been excellent,” explains Managing Director James Ashbrook. “With our contracting and hire business expanding significantly we needed to increase the numbers in our fleet, so based on our experience we’ve added to our portfolio of Volvo compact excavators. We also needed larger machines for specific projects we’re undertaking as well as our hire division and this coincided with an attractive package on offer from Volvo for the fourteen and twenty two tonne machines,” he continues. “These larger Volvos are a first for us and we have high expectations in terms of their reputation for reliability, performance and ultimately - residual values.” Whilst JK Ashbrook will take care of maintaining the smaller machines
themselves, the Company has taken out service agreements with Volvo CE to maintain the larger machines under Volvo’s Blue Service agreement which in James Ashbrook’s opinion will go a long way in determining the overall cost of ownership and maintain a strong residual. “It makes sense particularly with the larger machines to let the experts maintain them for one thing and the other point is for machines which can go out on long term hire anywhere in the country we can rely on a consistent level of support from any one of Volvo’s support centres,” he says.
Reply No. 23
Einhell Buck The Trend And Upscale To Larger UK Head Office As part of an expansion plan, German Owned power tool and garden manufacturer Einhell UK has moved to a larger premises with increased warehouse storage and larger office facilities. The move is due to the continued growth and success of the business which has seen year on year growth in both its power tool and garden tool business.
Einhell UK managing director David Hall provided quote and comment “This is
a very exciting time for the business and our continued success and growth in the last few years has seen us outgrowing our last warehouse and offices. The move to Bromborough will enable us to target further growth initiatives and look for futher improvements in logistics as well as shorter lead times for getting stock to customers throughout the UK and increased UK stock holding capacity” Mr Hall added that despite the recession, Einhell have had a busy time investing in a New IT system and now moving to bigger premises. The new Head Office will also incorporate more showroom space to
demonstrate to customers the benefits of Einhell power tools and garden equipment as well as the recently acquired KWB accessory range.
Reply No. 4
MAKITA Trains HAE Apprentices To “Hire Standard” Makita is supporting the latest training initiative from the Hire Association Europe. The HAE has launched a shared apprenticeship scheme aimed squarely at raising and broadening the knowledge levels of customer facing staff so that rental customers receive high quality and skilled technical advice about machine selection and performance. Makita, Britain’s number one professional power tool manufacturer, has devised and delivered a new training course for these apprentices as an integral module within
the HAE’s 2-year training scheme. A further advanced module will be provided by Makita in the second year of the apprenticeship which will allow more specialisation within the power tool and grounds care machinery business. The pilot scheme currently running sees apprentices, taken on by HAE as a Recognised Training Provider, being placed with hire centres to gain knowledge of
customer handling, booking and handover procedures and other facets of the tool rental operations. The apprentices are either recruited by hire centres expanding their staff level or through Job Centre Plus and then by interview with centres who are recruiting. Additional specific subject modules have been determined to give a balanced
apprenticeship and the HAE looked to Makita to develop the content and delivery scheme as an initial broad awareness course as some apprentices had never received specific power tool training or hands-on experience. The Makita developed module has embraced the general product knowledge
that is delivered by the Makita Be Safe courses that have been running in construction colleges across the UK for the past ten years. This teaches core health and safety factors and the main technical criteria of demolition and rotary hammer drills, percussion drills, core drills, angle grinders, chop saws and disc cutters. It also provides a grounding in appropriate tool selection, blade and bit choices and strong emphasis on correct and safe use. The initial group of HAE apprentices aiming to secure careers in the rental
industry recently attended the two day course at Makita’s Milton Keynes HQ and training centre and the attendees were joined by Richard Whiting, Commercial Manager HAE.
Reply No. 11 24 ToolBUSINESS+HIRE
www.toolbusiness.co.uk
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